The Internet has grown at a remarkable pace, and has become firmly entrenched in nearly all aspects of society. Whereas the Internet initially was limited to purely academic and government endeavors, the Internet has now become an important avenue of commercial activity, not to mention an important source of educational, commercial and entertainment-related information. Moreover, in addition to simply operating as a source of information, the Internet provides a mechanism for bringing together individuals and entities from across the globe.
In particular, given the global nature of the Internet, users often access web pages originating in different countries or regions of the world. While the world continues to get smaller, and different cultures continue to mix, there are still substantial differences between different countries and regions that can make it difficult for a person from one country or region to fully understand online content that originates in another country or region.
Language is of course one area that may inhibit a person's ability to comprehend online content originating in different countries or regions. Various translation tools, however, have been developed to enable, for example, web pages to be automatically translated into different languages.
Even when web pages are in a user's native language, however, a user may still face a comprehension problem due to the numerical values that are incorporated into online content such as web pages. For example, while the United States continues to rely predominantly on English or imperial standards for many units of measurement, most of the rest of the world has transitioned to the metric system. While much of the scientific community in the United States is well versed on the metric system, most laymen in the United States have only a passing understanding. Thus, for example, if a typical user in the United States was planning a trip to the United Kingdom, and was looking at UK web sites for travel information such as normal temperatures and distances between cities, the user would typically be presented with numerical values that are in native units for UK residents, i.e., temperatures in Celsius, rather than Fahrenheit, and distances in kilometers, rather than in miles. Even if the user understood the relationship between these different units of measurement, e.g., that a mile is equal to 1.6 kilometers, the user would still be required to mentally perform the conversion to convert the numerical values to units to which he or she was accustomed.
Likewise, other types of numerical values, e.g., monetary amounts, may vary in different locales, and often are based upon an exchange rate that varies day to day. As such, a user in the United States, accustomed to monetary amounts represented in terms of U.S. Dollars, would likely be presented with costs represented in British Pounds when viewing UK web sites, and accordingly would be required to know at least a general estimate of the current exchange rate even to mentally determine a rough approximation of the corresponding amounts in U.S. Dollars.
Various automated tools have been developed to facilitate the conversion of numerical values between different units. Specific web sites have been developed that enable a user to manually input a number in one unit, and then output the corresponding number in another unit. Search engines may also be used to obtain conversion formulas to enable users to perform conversions manually or with a calculator. Some calculators also provide the ability to convert numbers between different units. In each of these instances, however, whenever a user comes across a numerical value in a web page that he or she needs to convert to a unit with which he or she is accustomed, the user is often required to divert his or her attention away from the web page at least briefly, which can decrease the user's efficiency and otherwise distract the user.
In addition, some web sites support the ability to customize their web pages for different users. For example, some ecommerce web sites permit users to select a home country, such that the web pages communicated to different users will be customized for the home countries of those respective users. Such customization permits products to be priced out in the units of currency for different countries. In many instances, however, such pricing may not be based upon any particular exchange rate, but rather may be based upon the price that the seller has chosen to charge in different countries. In addition, the customization of web pages to support different countries is a server-based solution, and thus is only available on web sites that specifically provide such functionality.
Therefore, a significant need exists for a more universal, less intrusive and flexible manner of providing conversions of numerical values between different units.